Distortion or droputs in monitored audio while tracking

[O.G. Killa]

It's not that there are audio "dropouts" its that the audio coming from the record enabled/recording tracks go completely silent. The plugins stop passing audio completely. The audio is still being recorded to the hard drive without a problem and the meter for each track is moving as it should. There is just no audio output from those tracks while recording or while playing back. It's extremely obvious when it starts happening. And it does not happen immediately. I might get through one cue/PT session with no problems... the next cue/PT session might start exhibiting this problem 8 or 10 minutes into tracking in it. The next 2 cues might work fine with no problems. Then the cue after that might have the problem start after 2 minutes of tracking in it.

If I select all the record enabled tracks and do a Cmd+opt+cntrl+shift+click on each insert (makes all of them in that row inactive), once I have made all the plugins on the record enabled tracks inactive, audio playback of those record enabled tracks resumes as it normally should. Except now I have no EQ or compression or gating, etc.

Like I said, the problem is intermittent. It's not consistently getting fuzzy distorted audio as soon as I record enable any tracks... It's not consistently losing audio playback of the record enabled audio tracks as soon as I record enable them.

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by O.G. Killa

That is a really good idea. The only other plugs I have that are DSP are the Sonnox ones. I didn't have time to swap out all the plugs with Sonnox on the past few sessions this has happened to me on. But I will try that next time it starts happening.

Cool.

The idea of using Digitest to test the chips also seems like a prudent thing to check.

One other thing.... I notice a mix of non Avid interfaces and Avid interfaces. What sequence do you have them in? I have two Avid (actually one Digidesign) boxes and an Apogee Symphony I/O and PT does not like when the Apogee is the first interface on Port A here, even though it's my primary.

Just throwing out ideas to try.

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

Cool.

The idea of using Digitest to test the chips also seems like a prudent thing to check.

One other thing.... I notice a mix of non Avid interfaces and Avid interfaces. What sequence do you have them in? I have two Avid (actually one Digidesign) boxes and an Apogee Symphony I/O and PT does not like when the Apogee is the first interface on Port A here, even though it's my primary.

Just throwing out ideas to try.

Well I did a digi test when I installed everything and everything checked out. I just ran it again and it said the first card failed at 96K and 192K... My sessions weren't at 96 or 192K but this may signify a problem. I'm going to research it further. I'll post here what I find out.

Thanks guys!

[studioj11]

I would also try reversing the card order in your chassis.

If that still presents the problem then try each card independently.

[Shan]

If you haven't already, also trash your prefs.

[Sonny Keyes]

Do you have anything plugged into the optical audio output on your trashcan? I had similar audio interruptions on mine until I figured out that Pro Tools and Yosemite were fighting over the digital audio output from the computer (it used to work fine on my old Mac Pro Tower) and when I swapped the optical out for an audio mini-plug the problem went away.

[O.G. Killa]

So I took the ADA8 of the loop and ran digitest. It passed. Digitest must has a problem changing the ADA8 to 96K and 192K. But that shouldn't effect me since I'm recording at 48K.

Anyway, with the prism out, I opened one of the sessions again. Problem was there as soon as I started playback.

So I solo'd the drums and did a faster than realtime bounce to disk to have an audio file of the problem... but the BTD audio file was perfect!!! No distortion in the BTD audio file!!! Very strange!

So I had to create a new stereo audio track and bus all the drums to it in order to record the distortion. then I turned the plugins off and recorded it again without the distortion. When I turn the plugins back on, distortion is back again.

Is there a way to post an MP3 file up here? I can put the audio files up so you can hear what I'm talking about. It's not normal distortion. It's like clocking or bit rate error distortion.

Oh I should also mention this session that I have open right now only has 82 active voices. It's not even really that much.

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by Sonny Keyes

Do you have anything plugged into the optical audio output on your trashcan? I had similar audio interruptions on mine until I figured out that Pro Tools and Yosemite were fighting over the digital audio output from the computer (it used to work fine on my old Mac Pro Tower) and when I swapped the optical out for an audio mini-plug the problem went away.

Nope... nothing plugged in.

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by Shan

If you haven't already, also trash your prefs.

I haven't tried that utility yet, does it work with Mac OS 10.10.3 and PT HDX 12? In the link it says it it's for Mac OS 10.7... I'm afraid to try it and have it completely destroy my PT setup. I've got a bunch of sessions happening over the next 3 weeks and wouldn't have time to fix it right now if the computer goes down.

[O.G. Killa]

Just an update. I've been doing sessions pretty much back to back since posting this problem. I've switched to using the Sonnox Oxford DSP plugins instead of the DigiRack plugins on the tracks i am recording.

No problems whatsoever. No distortion. No wackiness. So the Sonnox plugins work in this instance where the stock Avid/digirack ones do not.